


As He Remembered

by BohemianRhapsodyInBlue



Series: Could Have Been [3]
Category: Glee, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Amnesia, Crossover, M/M, Sebastian Smythe is Barry Allen | The Flash, Time Travel, ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24700555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BohemianRhapsodyInBlue/pseuds/BohemianRhapsodyInBlue
Summary: He couldn’t pretend that he hadn’t rewritten his own life, or that he couldn’t see how cautious Hunter was being with him, or how absolutely terrified he was that he was never going to get back everything he’d missed.-Barry has returned to a timeline that he doesn't recognise, will he ever be able to recover his memories?
Relationships: Barry Allen & Hunter Clarington, Barry Allen/Hunter Clarington, Blaine Anderson/Original Male Character(s), Eddie Thawne/Iris West, Hunter Clarington/Sebastian Smythe
Series: Could Have Been [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1758346
Comments: 9
Kudos: 58
Collections: Flash - Coldflash





	1. Chapter 1

It had been a few days now, since Barry woke up back at Star Labs. A long and confusing few days, for everyone. Barry could see how concerned everyone was. Sure he’d gotten injured before but never to this extent. As far as they were aware he’d forgotten half of his life.

Great job Barry, messing up another timeline, he thought to himself.

Of course it wasn’t entirely different. Caitlin had cleared him to be able to go home and go about his days as usual since she couldn’t actually find any sign of injury other than his apparent amnesia. So he had.

Tried to carry on as normal that is.

It wasn’t impossible. There was a lot that was the same as he remembered. He still had Joe and Iris, he still worked at the precinct, he was still the Flash.

Some moments it was almost easy for him to pretend nothing had changed, sometimes he felt like it had all been a crazy dream.

And then a glint of light would catch his eye, shining off the ring on his finger.

He couldn’t pretend.

He couldn’t pretend when he’d get back to his apartment. Their apartment.

He couldn’t pretend that he hadn’t rewritten his own life, or that he couldn’t see how cautious Hunter was being with him, or how absolutely terrified he was that he was never going to get back everything he’d missed.

Hunter was doing his best to try and help his memories return.

‘I don’t know, Hunter.’ Barry had interjected, listening to his husband explaining, with an intense amount of focus, everything he had on the cards to trigger Barry’s memories. Hunter’s expression softened coming over from where he’d been pacing at the foot of the bed to sit beside him. He took Barry’s hand after hesitating slightly.

‘Hey, when have I ever been wrong before?’ He spoke softly. Barry snorted.

‘Even with amnesia, I can still think of many times.’ They both laughed quietly. Barry idly fidgeted, playing with Hunter’s hands as a silence settled over them.

‘I’m sorry.’ He whispered, guilt rising in his chest that he’d been trying to suppress since he got back to this time.

Hunter looked at him carefully.

‘What are you sorry for?’ He asked, honestly lost. Barry took a choked breath.

‘Because everything’s changed, and I don’t know what to do about it.’ Hunter didn’t say anything, waiting for Barry to continue, ‘Because I love you, I do Hunter, I love you but I’m so lost, I don’t remember the biggest moments in our life together and there’s nothing I can do about it.’

‘Hey, that’s not true, Caitlin and Cisco are doing everything they can to try and figure out what happened to make you forget everything, and you know I’ve been coming up with ways to help too.’ He countered, lowering his head to get eye contact. Barry nodded dejectedly. He knew what had happened, he’d screwed everything up, he created this amazing life where he could be with the love of his life, and everyone could be happy, but what use was that if he didn’t remember any of it.

He mentally scolded himself for how selfish he was being, he didn’t do all of this for himself, he did it so Kurt would still be alive and somehow that had actually worked. His happiness was not worth more than Kurt’s life, he told himself. But then he’d look up at this man that he loved and was crushed. This man who he had cared so deeply for, who’d been there for him at his worst, who was still there for him now, even though Barry had missed everything.

‘I don’t want to let you down.’

‘You could never.’ Hunter said with such certainty, kissing his forehead. Barry tried to smile in return but he couldn’t help how completely hopeless he felt.

-

They headed over to Star Labs the next day, Caitlin wanted to do more tests. Barry let her, it was the least he could do after how much he’d screwed everything up. You never know, he considered, maybe she’d even figure out how to help him. God knows, crazier things have happened.

Soon enough Caitlin sent him off so she could work on the data. He wondered off, giving a quick nod to Cisco, in search of Hunter. He didn’t believe the man would have left without him. After five minutes of walking around checking the places he’d expect Hunter to be, he headed downstairs to train. Caitlin had suggested he keep running, she thought it would trigger some of his memories. He knew that it wouldn’t work like that, but after no success in finding Hunter he figured he might as well make himself useful by keeping up his speed.

He made his way into the speed chamber, surprised to see Hunter in one of the observation rooms with Iris. Barry gave them a wave which they returned, before he started to run. He’d been hesitant to run like this after everything that had happened. He didn’t mean to travel back in time, he didn’t mean to come back, it had just happened when he was running and God knows he didn’t want a repeat of those incidents.

So he went careful, trying to stay focussed, not going too fast.

He knew Hunter was watching, probably telling Iris all about his concerns.

That’s something Barry hadn’t expected. I mean he hadn’t expected any of this, but after the realisation that he’d time travelled again had settled he still found himself surprised by how well Hunter got on with his sister. He supposed it was completely unbelievable, they’d been raised together so they naturally had a lot of similarities, Barry guessed it made sense that they’d get along.

_‘Yeah he cried like three times on the trip over here, I had to buy him chocolate to get him to calm down.’ Hunter laughed winking, his hand reaching out to greet Joe. Barry cringed, slapping playfully at Hunter’s arm._

_‘You can’t embarrass me in front of my own family.’ He exclaimed._

_‘Um he most definitely can, I’m Iris, I think we’re gonna get on perfectly.’_

Barry gasped, startling at the images crossing in front of his eyes. He skidded to a halt. His hands coming up to cradle his head.

‘No, no, I’m staying here. I’m not leaving again. Stay here, Barry.’ He begged to himself as figures moved across his vision that he knew weren’t there in the empty room. He gripped onto his hair trying to ground himself to the present. Clenching his eyes shut as his head began to pound. He felt himself falling like he was being sucked down a drain.

_‘Yeah I get good grades, but I’m just trying to get my high school diploma,’ Hunter responded dismissively, shrugging his shoulder’s and looking down at his plate almost self consciously. Barry shook his head._

_‘He’s putting himself down, he’s like naturally good at everything, it would be annoying if he wasn’t so modest.’_

_‘Well that’s not true.’_

_‘Oh yeah? Hunter, what can’t you do, hm?’ Barry retorted, snorting as Hunter paused to think about it. Hunter laughed too as he jumped to defend himself._

_‘Hey, no, I can’t cook. There, are you happy?’ Hunter grinned, oddly proud at his lack of cooking skills if he meant he would win this conversation. Joe let out a loud laugh._

_‘Oh, well you’re in good company, these two nearly burned down the house trying to cook a father’s day dinner for me once.’_

_‘Oh my god, I remember that!’ Iris choked, her hand coming up to cover her mouth so she wouldn’t spit out her dinner, she pulled her sleeve back twisting her arm awkwardly to show Hunter a small scar on her elbow, ‘I burned myself on a pan.’_

_Hunter gave her an incredulous look at her matter of fact tone._

_‘You know, I think we’re more qualified now, we should try that again.’ Barry joked in a serious tone._

_‘No!’ Joe said firmly, eyes widening, ‘You’re both lucky I got there before you could do anymore damage.’_

_Hunter watched the three of them interacting in amusement. When Joe caught his eye he made sure to make himself clear._

_‘I’m not joking, never let this boy cook anything, and you will live a long and happy life.’ Pointing accusingly at Barry who was sat on the other side of the table next to his boyfriend._

_‘Well, when Barry is a famous scientist we’ll be able to afford a personal chef.’ Hunter responded confidently._

_‘Oh yeah? And what are you gonna be doing while I’m bringing in the money?’ Barry grinned._

_‘I’m gonna be working at some top secret agency-‘_

_‘What? Like a spy?’ He asked amusedly, raising his eyebrows._

_‘Hey, I could do that!’ The boy in question responded feeling the need to defend himself despite it being a joke in the first place._

_‘I don’t doubt that.’ Barry said simply, God knows Hunter could be sneaky when he wanted._

_The two boys missed the look Joe and Iris shared seeing them get lost in conversation about the future._

_-_

_‘call.’ He said, sliding some potato chips into the centre of the coffee. Barry wasn’t proud of how long him and Iris had spent giggling about using actual chips in their poker game, but Hunter had eventually joined in telling them how ridiculous they both were. It wasn’t until Joe had told them to quiet down as he headed upstairs to get an early night that they managed to get themselves under control._

_‘Raise.’ Hunter took his turn monotonously, pushing more chips into the centre. At this point Iris had retired to the couch had lost interest in the game some time ago but still insisting on not going to bed. She was texting idly on her phone. They’d been playing for about an hour, Barry winning every time. As sneaky as Hunter was, Barry definitely had an underrated poker face from all those years of pretending to be someone he wasn’t._

_Even with that though, he found himself having to restrain himself from raising his eyebrows at Hunter’s move. It felt like a bold move coming from the calculating boy, he must have a good hand, Barry considered._

_He looked down at his own hand, it wasn’t the best, but he’d done more with less. He could get a straight if the last card worked in his favour, so he’d most likely win again._

_‘Raise.’ He returned pushing all of his chips in, hoping it would push the other boy to fold, which the other boy did. Barry grinned, nudging Hunter with his leg almost apologetically from where they were both sprawled out under the table._

_He threw his own cards onto the table confidently._

_Hunter turned over the last card, and Barry cheered as the card made a straight._

_‘Aw sorry babe, looks like I’m too good at this.’ He laughed taking all the chips._

_‘That’s ok.’ Hunter responded his own grin forming as he turned over his cards revealing a straight flush._

_Barry felt his face go slack, as Hunter pulled all of the chips in his direction leaving Barry broke. Hunter had beaten him._

_‘What- How?’ Hunter raised a finger to his lips conspiratorially, his eyes flicking over Barry’s shoulder as he smirked._

_Barry twisted quickly, following Hunter’s eye movements, to where Iris was sitting innocently looking down at her phone. Too innocently. He gasped dramatically._

_‘You cheated!’ He accused in outrage. Both Iris and Hunter burst out laughing at how well that had worked out, Hunter getting up to high five her._

_‘Sorry babe, guess I’m too good at this.’ He repeated the other boy’s words smugly as he sat down next to him on the floor._

_Barry’s hand came up to his chest._

_’I’ve never felt so betrayed.’ He cried out, wiping away an imaginary tear. Hunter scoffed at his dramatics, throwing an arm around Barry’s shoulder to pull him closer._

_‘You love me.’_

_‘Shut up._

_-_

_‘What do you think?’ Barry spoke letting his voice break the silence of Iris’ room. Since Joe was obviously never going to let Barry and Hunter sleep in the same room, Barry had set up an airbed on his sister’s floor._

_Iris rolled over in her bed to squint down at him her face illuminated by the dim light from her phone._

_‘I think he’s cool, he’s seems like he knows what he’s doing.’_

_Barry chuckled._

_‘He always knows what he’s doing. That’s his thing.’ He joked, a fond smile gracing his face as he looked up at the ceiling. His eyes tracing over the glowing stars blue tacked to her ceiling._

_‘So you like him them?’ He asked, almost hesitantly. He didn’t think it needed to be stated that it was clearly important for them to like the boy, that’s why he’d been so reluctant to bring Hunter to meet them for the weekend. Hunter had said it was perfect timing, his parents both away on business trips meaning if he’d gone home he would have been on his own._

_‘Yep.’ She stated firmly, shuffling under her blanket to be more snuggled in, ‘I approve.’_

_Barry beamed remembering when they’d spoken about Iris’ boyfriend last Christmas._

_They lay in silence, Barry watching Iris’ purple lava lamp in the corner._

_His smile slowly settled into a thin line as his thought’s weighed down on him._

_‘Do you think dad likes him?’ He asked slowly._

_Iris paused to think, which didn’t help his nerves about the situation._

_‘Iris?’ She huffed at his impatience._

_‘Yeah he likes him, are you kidding? Hunter’s like the perfect guy to bring home to your parents. I just think-‘ She hesitated._

_‘What?’_

_‘I think he’s a bit freaked out by how serious you two seem.’_

_Barry’s brow furrowed in a confused smile, having not expected the conversation to go in that direction._

_‘What are you talking about?’_

_‘I mean, you spend years, showing no interest in anyone, granted you weren’t out, but you suddenly show up head over heels with this boy we hadn’t even met yet talking about your future together. I think dad’s just a bit surprised at seeing you so… in love.’_

_Barry turned away not knowing what to say._

_‘Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t seen you this happy since- I was gonna say when we were kids but even then you were never like this.’ Barry gave her questioning look, ‘You’re like a different person, so open and completely at ease with this boy.’_

_He smiled._

_Yeah, I guess I am.’_

_Iris smiled back at him._

_‘You’ve had so much sadness in your life, you deserve to be happy, and if he makes you happy, then I love him.’_

‘Barry?’

He heard foot steps approaching, he startled looking up to see Hunter running towards him.

‘Babe, you ok?’ Hunter reached him, immediately started checking him over for some kind of injury.

‘Yeah, I’m ok.’ Barry responded slowly, feeling kind of dazed, like he’d just woken up from a really deep sleep. Hunter watched him, not happy with the lack of answers.

‘You stopped running.’ He prompted.

‘Yeah.’

Hunter sighed exasperatedly.

‘Babe, can you tell me what’s wrong? You were holding your head.’ Hunter asked trying to coax some kind of explanation out of him.

‘I think- I think I remembered something.’ Barry’s hand came up to the side of his face confused.

Was that possible? Could he remember something he hadn’t technically lived through? But if it wasn’t then what did he just see? He couldn’t have made it up, it felt so real. He looked up at his husband, his own confusion showing on his face as he met Hunter’s concerned eyes.

‘Come on let’s get you back to Caitlin.’

-

As it turns out Caitlin wasn’t able to shed much light on the situation either. Since they were unaware of what caused the ‘amnesia’, they weren’t able to tell him much about what could have happened to trigger the memory, but they did spend some time confirming that it was in fact a memory, Iris and Hunter smiling to each other as they recalled their first meeting.

Barry hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it, even as Hunter took him home. They made dinner together, a meal that Barry didn’t remember learning but found that he hands knew the movements. cutting up the ingredients with a practised ease, so much for a personal chef, he thought to himself.

Maybe it really was possible for his memories to be triggered by things. Sure, he was aware that it wasn’t actually amnesia but he didn’t know how he’d managed to accidentally time travel in the first place, so it wasn’t like he had a guide on how things worked afterwards.

With that in mind he began looking around their shared apartment for things to help him remember, Hunter was in the shower so he figured he’d be able to do so with out interruption.

He didn’t know how long he spent looking through drawers and picking up random ornaments he found on shelves, but nothing seemed to have any kind of effect on him.

Just as he was losing hope, he came across a framed picture of Hunter and a group of other people sat around in some bar he absently recognised as being in Central City.

Barry examined the photo trying to figure out who they were, he didn’t know these people, and he wasn’t in it so he figured they were Hunter’s… friends? Maybe.

He traced his eyes over the different faces before noticing someone in the back that he recognised.

Diggle was sat with his wife Lyla, gesturing at another man like he was mid sentence.

‘What you doing?’ Barry jumped at Hunter voice coming from behind him, his hand coming up to his heart. He gave the man a look for sneaking up on him, to which Hunter laughed, before looking back at the picture.

Oliver wasn’t there so it couldn’t be related to the Arrow, besides wouldn’t he be in it himself if it was. He figured he knew that crowd more than Hunter did, right?

‘You know Diggle?’ He asked, finally settling on being outright about it.

Hunter looked at the photo too now.

‘Yeah, you remember him?’ He responded, looking proud of Barry for recognising someone. It was hard to explain to the other man that he was the only one Barry didn’t remember from this timeline. So he’d been pretty vague on what he could and couldn’t remember, not wanting to hurt the man’s feelings.

‘Yeah but I didn’t know you were friends.’

‘Well we’re more like work friends I guess, I don’t see him much but this was a kind of birthday celebration for a colleague of ours.’ Hunter explained patiently.

Barry paused, a crease forming between his eyebrows as he took that in.

‘You ok?’ Hunter asked, watching him clearly trying to figure something out.

‘You work for ARGUS?’

‘Yeah I’m a logistician with them.’

_‘I’m gonna be working at some top secret agency-‘_

‘Huh.’ Hunter watched him, ‘That sounds like something you’d be good at.’

Hunter barked out a laugh.

‘I’m glad you think so.’ Hunter chuckled fondly, before heading towards the kitchen ‘I’m making hot chocolate, you want anything?’

Barry absentmindedly shook his head.

Look at them, he was a forensic scientist, and Hunter was working for ARGUS. He laughed shortly. How on earth did he manage to get a timeline that worked out so perfectly?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you see a plot hole, look away, don't even take notice of it, i'm literally trying so hard to make sense of all of this 
> 
> anyway here you go, i wanted more whump for Barry but this honestly just turned into me trying to mend some plot holes and i dont know what im doing
> 
> I hope you enjoy though, thanks for reading x

Barry didn’t know if it was a quiet day or if the Captain was just trying not to give him too much work. There’d been a lot of quiet days since he’d ‘returned’, lots of ‘I’ll sort that for you Barry,’ and ‘why don’t you just check out those files on your desk?’. 

If Barry was completely honest, as irritating as it was, he’d been wary when he first stepped into the precinct. What was a day for everyone here, was an entire year away for him. It had been so long since he’d done any kind of forensic analysis. He’d spent the last year doing classroom experiments, it would be an understatement to call that a step down. So to think that he could just step back into his lab like nothing had changed was a bit daunting for him.

So it was almost relieving that he could stick to simpler tasks for a while, ease his way back into his job.

It was obvious that Joe must have filled Singh in on Barry’s situation from the way he was tiptoeing around him. Well not really, the Captain was never one to tiptoe. But he had been giving him looks whenever they crossed paths in the break room, and sending people up to his lab to give him files instead of calling him down. And if those people asked him how he was doing Barry assumed they went back to report their findings to the boss.

He supposed it could be worse. After all if this was what he had to deal with to continue working there then he was fine with that. He’d missed his lab. There was only so much you could do with high school chemistry equipment. 

Barry breathed in deeply, hugging his mug of coffee to his chest cherishing its warmth on the cold day, it had been raining all morning. He pushed his feet against the floor to spin his chair gently. Taking in the familiar layout of the room. It was one of the only things that was almost exactly how he remembered it. 

The only notable differences were the addition of some new photographs. He’d always been envious of how his colleagues decorated their desks, photos of their partners, gifts from their children. Just little sentimental trinkets. Barry’s desk had always been so… impersonal.

He took a moment to take in the photo of him and Hunter, the other man dressed in a cadet uniform, and Barry wearing one of his best suits. There were other people in military attire in the background of the photo, some throwing their hats in the air. Hunter’s graduation? Probably. Barry found himself wishing he could have properly been there to support him.

An alarm rang out distracting him from the thought.

Barry stood from his desk moving over to one of the other computers where he’d been waiting on some data to finish processing. He took a sip of his coffee as his eyes drifted over the information on the screen absently. His eye-line moved upwards taking in the way the downpour of rain was warping his view through the large windows.

The crack of lightning that whipped across the sky shouldn’t have startled him so much. Not after everything he’d experienced. Nonetheless, the familiarity of the situation had Barry losing his grip on his mug. Ordinarily it would be no problem for him to just speed grab it before it could hit the floor.

Instead his hand went to instinctively cover his ears. The sound of the mug breaking against the hard floors mixing in with the crash of lightning ringing in his head.

The hot liquid seeping through his converse brought him out of his daze. He gasped, cursing his clumsiness. He dropped to his knees trying to salvage the mess on the floor. It was just so hard to focus with all this noise. The rain pounding against the windows, the thunder rumbling above him. The liquid all over the floor and his hands, god the chemicals were just coming out of the test tubes, what was he meant to do? He couldn’t stop it!

The second crash of lightning sent him flinching violently against cabinet beside him. Reflexively he snapped his eyes shut.

To his surprise, all the noise stopped, as instantly as he closed his eyes. Instead his head was filled with music. 

‘Can’t read my, can’t read my, no you can’t read my poker face-‘ Confusion filled his mind, where was he? There was something calming about the smooth voice singing quietly with the music though.

‘You’ve got a nice voice. man.’ Another person spoke, they sounded further away, their voice coming out muffled.

‘Thanks, we met in a high school show choir, I thought he might be able to hear me.’ The voice sounded hesitant. 

‘Auditory functions are the last sensory faculties to degenerate-‘

What? Degenerate? Were they talking about him? Who were they? Where was he?

He wanted to see what was going on, why couldn’t he see anything? 

He felt himself moving closer to the sounds, or maybe they were just getting louder. Too loud, everything felt so close, he could feel everything. 

His eyes burst open and he sat up gasping.

‘Oh my god!’ He squinted against the brightness of the room.

‘Where am I?’ 

‘He’s up!’ A female voice this time.

‘Barry?’ There was a hand on his arm.

Suddenly the woman was there pushing him back, shining a torch in his eyes. He tried to resist against her, feeling disoriented.

‘Hey, hey, Barry it’s ok, it’s ok,’ He looked sharply towards the source of the voice ready to fight them too. The second he found himself looking into the wide green eyes of his boyfriend, Barry gasped a breath of relief.

Suddenly feeling exhausted, he let himself droop back against the pillows of the bed he was in, allowing the confusion to come back to the forefront of his mind.

Nevertheless, Hunter was here, he was safe. As long as Hunter was there, everything would be ok.

He tried to stay calm as the shorter man explained where he was and what had happened. He’d been struck by lightning, he’d been in a coma, for christ’s sake.

Instincts had him reaching out for Hunter’s hand, clutching onto the only thing that made sense to him. 

Hunter choked back a sad smile.

‘God you don’t realise how long I’ve been waiting for you hold my hand back.’

Barry tried to smile back despite how confusing and scary this entire situation was. He felt Hunter’s thumb stroking the back of his hand and knew it would be ok.

—

Iris and Joe had come as quickly as they could arrange to leave work. Hunter had called them after having to convince Barry not to immediately leave Star Labs to go see them himself. That probably wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do straight after waking from a coma, and Hunter seemed much more relaxed knowing that he was resting.

It had been a tear filled reunion, Iris didn’t seem to want to let go of him. They stayed for hours cautiously filling him in on things he’d missed in the past nine months, they didn’t want to overwhelm him.

Barry had been trying his best to listen along, but found himself getting distracted. Jesus, he’d been in a coma, that wasn’t the kind of thing you could just bounce back from, or was it? He didn’t know.

He distractedly watched through the doorway, the short man, Cisco he’d introduced himself as, was spinning in a chair outside of the room the were in. Barry couldn’t believe he was actually in Star Labs, he was dying to see what kind of equipment they had, what kind of information they had stored on those computers the man was carelessly spinning in front of. He watched as the man accidentally kicked a Darth Vader pencil holder off the top of the desk.

He watched as time slowed and the pencils fell in slow motion. Barry resisted the urge to run out of bed and catch them, it seemed pretty pointless and he didn’t know if he even had the energy to do so right now.

As time returned to normal and the stationary clattered to the floor, a thought came into Barry’s head. His eyes widened.

‘Do they know?’ He whispered, leaning in closer to Hunter as if the scientists would be able to hear from the other room. Hunter gave him a confused look.

Joe leaned in on the other side of the bed, looking concerned.

‘Know what, Bar?’ The older man asked.

‘About my… speed,’ Barry gestured his arms awkwardly, speaking hesitantly.

Hunter shared a look with Joe, Barry wasn’t sure what it meant.

‘No, we didn’t tell them. We weren’t sure if we could trust them or not.’ Hunter responded lowering his voice now as well.

‘After we realised you weren’t just gonna heal like you normally do, we figured you might not even still have it after the lightning.’ Iris spoke carefully. Barry nodded.

He was pretty sure he still had his powers, based on the was time had just slowed, but he’d have to wait until later on to test it.

—

Barry finds he doesn’t actually have much time to test his powers out, there was constant surveillance at Star Labs, and by the time they cleared him to leave he was exhausted. He felt too relieved to be able to go home with Hunter to think about anything else.

It isn’t until the next day that he has the chance to think about it. Apparently people were eager to see him at the precinct after so long, and since he was up and walking Joe had taking him there to see everyone.

‘Hey Barry, good to see you!’ He nodded towards the officer happily, before he noticed the guy whose arrest they were dealing with reaching for another officer’s gun. Barry’s smile dropped, without thinking he ran at the man, he’d intended to move the gun out of the man’s reach but he moved faster than he’d anticipated. Much faster.

Barry ended up knocking into the man, pushing him off balance before he couldn’t get the momentum to turn back to where he’d originally been standing. When time returned to normal speed, the man was angrily resisting against the officers, but he didn’t have the gun. 

‘You ok?’ Iris asked, suddenly beside him. She must have seen how flustered he looked.

‘I’m fine,’ Sure he was, this wasn’t new, he had powers, but he was suddenly so much faster. He took note of the stray pieces of paper that had been blown to the floor and the way the lights were still swinging, ‘I- I just need some air, but I’ll call you tonight, alright?’ 

He quickly excused himself, making his way out of the building.

His hands shook with power, more than he had felt before, he found himself stumbling around outside, not being able to control how fast he was moving.

‘What’s happening?’ Why was he suddenly so much faster? He managed to stop himself from moving, still miraculously outside of the precinct. Ok, so he could just move a bit faster. What’s a bit more power gonna change?

He looked around him, down the long stretch of alleyway he was in and grinned.

He ran, faster than he knew he could, the buildings either side of him blurring into a grey colour. He couldn’t even see where he was anymore it was so fast.

Before he could stop himself he saw a van in front of him.

He closed his eyes feeling the impact against the sacks of laundry.

‘What the hell, are you ok?’

—

Eddie had been on his way up to the lab to get a report of Barry anyway when he heard a smash. Captain Singh had briefly informed them that Barry was to take it easy but hadn’t gone into much detail. It was only because of his relationship with Iris that he knew anything more. She’d been insistent that Barry was being stupid coming back to work so soon when he clearly still had amnesia, so it was up to him to keep an eye on the man. That was easier said than done though, especially when Barry seemed… fine. Whatever was wrong with him obviously hadn’t affected his ability to work there or his knowledge. 

With that in mind, he assumed the smashing noise was just Barry being clumsy, he must have just dropped a test tube or something. 

‘Hey Allen, you have that report for me-‘ He paused in his step when he took in the sight.

Barry was crouched on the floor pressed against a cabinet, his hands pressed against his ears and his eyes clenched shut. 

‘What the hell, are you ok?’ He spoke, rushing towards the man, dropping to his knees next to him.

He ignored the feeling of coffee seeping into the knees of his trousers in favour of focussing on the smear of blood on the side of Barry’s face.

‘Hey, Barry, can you hear me?’ The man in question opened his eyes slowly, looking around and down at himself disoriented.

‘Eddie,’ He muttered, not as a question, it sounded more like he was reminding himself where he was. The blonde man watched as Barry lowered his hands looking at the small cuts on his palms.

‘Are you ok? What happened?’

There was a pause where Barry didn’t say anything, just taking note how he was sitting.

‘I broke my mug.’ Eddie paused for a moment, before realising that must be how Barry cut his hand. He took a breath.

‘Can you stand?’ He asked waiting for Barry’s dazed nod before helping him up and moving him to a chair.

Barry seemed confused, he kept looking down at his wet shoes, and then to his hands.

Eddie made quick work of finding the first aid kit Barry kept and moving to kneel in front of the man. He carefully started tending to Barry’s cuts.

‘What happened?’ Eddie repeated, hoping for an answer this time. Barry shook his head dazed.

‘The lightning, I dropped my mug,’ Eddie frowned.

’I don’t think there was any lightning Barry.’ He watched as Barry turned to look out the window, it was raining but the weather wasn’t that bad.

‘Oh, I guess I was just-‘ He shrugged.

Eddie remembered distantly when they’d first got together, Iris mentioning being concerned about Barry being in his lab again, about it bringing back memories. He figured this must have been where Barry was struck by lightning. He sighed when the realisation came over him.

‘Flashback huh?’ He asked, finishing off bandaging Barry’s hands.

‘Yeah, must have been.’ Barry responded dismissively. He’d been quite distant towards Eddie since his amnesia started, he seemed to know who he was but not very well. It was strange for Eddie, after being in a relationship with Iris for a while now they’d become friends. So it was odd to have Barry acting like they barely know each other, but understandable at least.

—

He put a friendly hand on Barry’s shoulder after pushing himself up to stand.

‘Well hey, that’s good, right? You’re remembering things.’ Eddie said cheerfully. Barry nodded uncertainly, feeling more clear headed now.

‘I guess,’ He responded, assuming Eddie would leave now, he had no reason to watch out for him.

To his surprise, Eddie was still looking at him with concern, the blonde man found an empty spot on Barry’s desk and leaned against it.

‘What’s wrong?’ 

Barry gave him a confused look.

‘Listen Barry, I know you, we’re friends, you can tell me whatever it is.’

Barry sighed.

‘It’s just,’ He paused, Eddie gave him a nod of encouragement, seeming happy that he was willing to open up to him, ‘It’s just that, I remembered something that I thought I already knew.’

Eddie frowned in confusion.

‘I mean, it was like a memory I already had,’ He thought back to how things had gone down in his original timeline, ‘except it was different to how I expected.’ 

‘Well that’s doesn’t sound crazy, maybe you remembered things wrong before to try and fill in the gaps from the amnesia, that would explain why it’s not what you expected.’

Barry shrugged, sure, they could stick with that. It’s not he could tell Eddie the truth. He went back in time and lost some of his power, presumably lived on with that amount of power and then when he got hit by lightning, it restored all of the power he originally had? Did that even make sense?

What was the point in him remembering these things if they were just gonna make him more confused?

And Eddie? They were apparently friends now. He supposed that made sense, Eddie and Iris were dating, and with him not being a ‘threat’ to their relationship in this timeline, he guessed that meant they had more time to get to know each other instead of fighting.

Eddie could apparently tell that he wasn’t taking all this new information well from the look on his face.

‘Come on, I’ll tell the Captain you’re not well.’

Eddie raised his eyebrows as though asking if that was ok.

Barry smiled thankfully, he supposed this was something else for him to get used to.


End file.
